Natural Food Experiment

My work with Silverpoint Investments has exposed me to the growing trend of organic or all-natural foods. Essentially, many meat products feed the animals hormones or antibiotics to make them grow better. For produce, we all know it is common to use chemical pesticides to protect the crops. The theory behind the trend to all-natural or organic food products is that these hormones and chemicals are not good for us. While there are no conclusive studies that links these practices to ill health effects, one can certainly understand the simple argument that if these hormones are not good for me to take myself, why would they be good for my food that I ingest? Further, it easy to see that as pesticide and hormone use has increased over the past 30 years, we have seen rises in cancer and obesity rates.
It is these thoughts and my work's interest in the organic movement that led me to propose a 3 week challenge to Lindsey, where we strive to eat only organic or all-natural products. The goal would be to evaluate if we noticed any immediate health effects and how it impacts the budget.
We have just completed our second week or the experiment. Our awareness of food ingredients has improved tremendously. It is obvious that we are spending more money, they key is how much more. In this experiment we have discovered that some product areas actually have comparable prices for all organic ingredients (salad dressings, bbq sauces, meat marinades). I think the big benefit of this experiment has been our raised awareness of the quality of the food we eat. At the end of this we may not move to a complete all-natural/organic diet, but we will likely shift our consumption to many of these products. After all, if you have the choice between an all-natural or a chemical-filled product, which would you consciously choose?
I will post our findings at the end of the experiment. We may extend it to 4 weeks because Lindsey has been stocking up on all-natural meats when she sees good sales.